


Forbidden Passions!

by Bagheera



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gothic, M/M, Parody, Pastiche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Sixth Doctor is a Gothic heroine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forbidden Passions!

**Author's Note:**

> It was a snowy day in Durham, and I was supposed to write an essay about Gothic literature. Instead, I ended up writing this comment fic on best_enemies. 
> 
> The little section headers are all common tropes of Gothic fiction. If you don't believe me, read The Monk. Or The Castle of Otranto.

**Forbidden Passions**

"No," Evelyn said, "that's the last time, Doctor. If you cannot keep your fingers out of the batter, you'll have to leave the kitchen."

"But," the Doctor said, "Evelyn - "

"Now."

The Doctor raised his chin. He could feel it tremble with emotion, but he would manfully resist losing his composure in front of Evelyn. "Very well!" he said, his voice betraying only a little of what he felt. "We part, then! I will go, evicted from my own kitchen, my own TARDIS!" Even more emotion welled up in him as he thought tenderly of his dear ship, where he had spent so many hours of bliss. That familiar corridor! That well-loved console room! With a great heaving sigh, the Doctor turned his back on all of it, ready to brave the elements.

Outside it was a dark and stormy night.

**Vast landscapes of sublime terror!**

A sturdy, rural sort of personage passed by the Doctor, his wellingtons much better suited for a dismal, muddy night in the forbidding wilderness.

"Excuse me!" the Doctor called after him, and tried to make haste, but his boot was stuck in the mud. "Excuse me, is there a village somewhere in this direction?" He pointed at the sloping hill ahead of them.

The man turned around, scratching himself under his scarf, and said something in the simple language of his people, and then something else, and then something more, with great emphasis.

"Ah," the Doctor said, "well. Thank you."

He was fairly certain this was England.

**Graveyards in the Midnight Hour!**

Finally, salvation from the elements was close at hand. That great looming shape on top of the hill had to be a church, or at least some kind of building with a roof. The Doctor, driven by a new wave of good hope, doubled his step - and suddenly found the ground dissolved beneath his very feet! A vast, gaping maw of blackest terror had opened beneath him and threatened to swallow him whole. He fell screaming and flailing and clutching desperately for some support, something to save him from certain annihiliation -

"Ow," the Doctor whimpered, and felt his head. Luckily, the six foot deep hole was as muddy on the bottom as the rest of the ground, and his fall had been softened. He couldn't discern much in the darkness around him, but a terrible certainty already formed in his thoughts. He was trapped, he was imprisoned in a freshly dug grave, he would be stuck here until dawn, when, he was sure, he would wake to the terrible visage of the gravedigger -

A sudden bright light hit his face, and he squinted, trying to shield his eyes with his hands. Above him, a priest stood in dark robes, a flashlight in one hand, and a very impressive shotgun in the other. He looked ready to dispatch whole armies of the dead.

He also looked terribly familiar.

"Oh dear," the Doctor said. "it's the seventies again, isn't it?"

**Vile Villainy!**

"I'll go and fetch a ladder," the Master said, which was really very nice of him, only the Doctor wished he had done it sooner, and not after a good twenty minutes of gloating. The Doctor had been very near trying to climb out of the grave on his own, since the hole really only was six foot deep, and when he stood, he was easily a good bit taller. But he didn't fancy an undignified scramble in the mud.

The Master really did return, this time with a short ladder and seemingly without a shotgun. "Thanks," the Doctor huffed when he finally escaped his pre-mature interment. "Terribly sorry to disturb you. I hope I didn't interrupt any satanic rituals you might have had planned for tonight."

The Master took a step back in surprise, suddenly looking shifty. "My dear, you must have hit your head - "

"Oh, no, no," the Doctor said, wagging a finger. "Don't you try to distract me. I'm from the future, you know."

"Are you quite sure? You may not have noticed, but you've recently regenerated." The Master gave the grave a pointed look.

"What? Oh!" The Doctor made a high, frustrated noise. "Our timelines are crossed! I know what you're up to because I've already dealt with your silly plot several regenerations ago. My present self is fine, and I dare say, probably a good deal cleaner than I am right now."

The Doctor thought he saw the Master release a tiny sigh of relief. This was at the same time endearing and vaguely insulting. "In that case," the Master said, "may I ask you to come inside?"

"I'm not entering any crypts with you!" the Doctor warned.

"There's also the rectory," the Master explained mildly.

**Dark secrets revealed!**

"Tea?"

"You wouldn't have any hot chocolate?" The Doctor asked hopefully, struggling out of his muddied coat and wet socks.

The rectory's kitched was a stark, spartan affair, with white walls and a dull green formica table as its centerpiece. The kitchen cabinet the Master opened, however, revealed a temptingly varied selection of hot drinks. The Doctor's request made him glance over his shoulder, and shake his head with a fond chuckle. "Tell me, Doctor, how many regenerations ahead are you?"

"Two," the Doctor said, defensively puffing out his chest in expectation of a jibe.

But the Master busied himself with heating milk on the stove and merely observed, when he at last put down two steaming cups between them on the table, "You seem quite different."

The Doctor ceased towelling his hair. "Oh. Well, you wouldn't believe how much you've changed."

The Master dipped his head and said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. Of course! The Doctor could have kicked himself. The Master, presumably, knew that he was on his final regeneration.

He didn't know what to say - he couldn't really say anything without causing a paradox, and he couldn't say anything comforting without speaking a lie.

"There is a guestroom upstairs," the Master said at length.

**Virtue imperiled!**

The Doctor knew that if this were his contemporary Master, there'd be considerably less space between them, the Master's hands would not be clasped politely (and a bit tensely) behind his back, and the Master would not try to pretend (with considerable success and dignity) that he was lingering longer than was strictly necessary.

The Doctor's lurid imagination also suggested that he might be chained to the bed, rather than standing awkwardly next to it in a borrowed bathrobe that was neither his nor the Master's size.

"It's very simple," the Master apologized, "but I expect that you'll refuse an invitation to my TARDIS."

"There's a bed," the Doctor said, "what, er, more could I want."

"Of course." Just for a moment, the Master met his eyes with a direct, probing gaze that made the Doctor's breath hitch. But nothing came of it, he averted it again with that same dignity, and turned towards the door. 

**The heroine lies sleepless!**

At every creak of the old wooden floors, the Master's imagination ran wild. He turned around, away from the door, pressing his face into the pillow. But not before long his eyes were open again, and he was watching the faint, suggestive play of shadows and moonlight through the curtains. He could decide if there was a chill in the air or a terrible choking heat, but he couldn't bring himself to move to slip under the blankets or open a window.

Again, something seemed to move in the dark corridor outside, slowly and with heavy tread.

The Master grit his teeth. He would survive this night with his dignity intact. He would not get up to check on things that rustled in the dark, he would not wander past the dark staircase to the Doctor's room, not even just to stand outside the door and consider all the things that might be done. He would not let his mind wander towards the terrible possibilities.

He thought he heard a doorknob being slowly turned, and a door hinge making its mournful noise, and willed his eyes not to hear, his imagination not to play tricks on him, his two hearts not to falter in their steady rhythm.

Someone seemed to softly call his name.

"We can pretend you're asleep, if that's what you'd like," the Doctor said hesitantly, somewhere between the door and the bed.

**Wicked men of the cloth!**

The Master turned onto his back and gave the Doctor's dark shadow looming over him a long, exasperated look. "In my cassock?"

"No," the Doctor admitted, "I suppose that would be ridiculous and impractical. Not, of course, that you aren't frequently both of these things. Conjuring demons while disguised as a priest? Really?"

The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed. His expression, as far as the Master could discern it in the dark, was not nearly as confident as his tone, and he seemed to know it, and it vexed him. For some reason, all this made the Master feel very comfortable. "There is actually a practical reason for it," he said as he pulled the Doctor on top of him, "apart from the fact that the confessional is a very convenient place to hypnotize people."

"Oh?" the Doctor said distractedly. He was getting acquainted with the intricacies of a vicar's cassock.

"Yes," the Master said. "It's spiritual preparation, if you like. Conjuring Azal will, if briefly, require me to be in a priestly mindset."

The Doctor paused. "I've always," he blurted in a somewhat breathless way, "liked how seriously you take this business of evil."

**Order restored**

"Oh," Evelyn said in an excited whisper as she squeezed into the pew next to the Doctor. "Finally I've found you! You've been gone all night."

A few grey heads turned to look reproachfully at them, but most of the attendants were busy shuffling forward to receive communion.

"Hush," the Doctor said to Evelyn. "Don't you know this is a church?"

At the altar, the Master raised the host, reciting the ancient Latin of the sanctus and the benedictus in serene concentration, and in a voice full and heavy with power and reverence.

Evelyn raised her brows. "He's very good at that," she said.

The Doctor nodded quietly. "Devilishly so, I'm afraid."


End file.
